Bleeding of images is a well-known aspect of printing. In general, “bleed” refers to a portion of an image that extends beyond a desired print area border, such as the edge of a page, a corner of a package face, or a boundary within a portion of a printed substrate. Bleed parameters are commonly established during the design of a print template. For example, when printing a two-dimensional document such as a postcard, no bleed may be required if the postcard will include an image surrounded by a white (i.e., unprinted) border. However, if it is desired that the image will extend to the border of the postcard, then the print template may include a bleed area—in this case, an area on which an extra portion of the image is printed. The bleed area allows for minor registration errors that may result from mechanical limitations of the printing and cutting equipment, minor sheet misalignment, or operator error. The bleed area may be trimmed before the card is considered to be final and ready for use
When printing a two dimensional substrate that will be cut and folded into a three-dimensional package, the template may need to include multiple bleed areas for multiple facets of the package. Until now, the defined bleed areas have been static, and directly associated with the template. However, such pre-defined templates are not useful in the context of personalized packaging for small volume runs. In personalized packaging, the print system must apply a dynamic rule set for many varied package runs, some of which may have a run length of only one package. Thus, the current options for generating bleed definitions for package printing are not useful in this context of personalized or small-run package printing.
This document describes systems and methods that present solutions to the problems discussed above, and which may also provide additional benefits.